Rossini - Complete Opera Overtures and Preludes No. 21, "La gazza ladra" - YouTube Rossini - Complete Opera Overtures and Preludes No. 21, "La gazza ladra" Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Published on Feb 14, 2014 "La gazza ladra" (1817). The opera premiered at La Scala, Milan on May 31, 1817. Philharmonia Slavonica, Henri Adolph cond.

Category San Francisco Symphony - ROSSINI: Overture to La gazza ladra San Francisco Symphony Rossini: Overture to La gazza ladra Overture to La gazza ladra (The Thieving Magpie) Gioachino Antonio Rossini was born on February 29, 1792, in the Adriatic port of Pesaro in the Marches and died on November 13, 1869, in Passy, a suburb of Paris. He composed La gazza ladra or The Thieving Magpie, an opera in two acts, in 1817, and it was first produced at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan on May 31 of that year. When it was first given in London, in 1830, it was billed as Ninetta, or The Maid of Palaiseau; on the whole we do better with the literal translation of the Italian title. The United States premiere took place in Philadelphia (in French translation) on September 14, 1829. The Overture exists in German and Italian editions: The German version (heard in these current performances) features a more robust brass complement.

Though Alfred Hertz conducted the San Francisco Symphony in the Overture to La gazza ladra as early as November 1924, the first subscription performances were given only on January 1953, with Victor de Sabata conducting; the most recent subscription performances of the German edition were given in March 1971, with Seiji Ozawa on the podium, though the Orchestra has often performed the Overture at pops, special events, and festival concerts. The score calls for flute and piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, triangle, snare drum, and strings. Performance time: about ten minutes. The Thieving Magpie is a comedy, or at least a drama with a lot of comic elements and a happy ending. You would infer that from its overture, at least once the bubbly Allegro begins; but then you might on the basis of its overture make the same assumption about, for example, the bloody Semiramide and be dead wrong.

Among good composers, Rossini walks away with all prizes for the dissociation of words (or situations) and music: Listen, for example, to the "Quis est homo" duet in his beautiful Stabat Mater. Or consider that the overture that seems so perfect to introduce The Barber of Seville had served twice before to introduce tragedies, Aureliano in Palmira and an opera about Queen Elizabeth I of England. Not until the poetic and pictorial overture to his last opera, William Tell—"I hear . . . the music of an arous'd and angry people," wrote Whitman—did Rossini engage with the possibilities of a prelude that would prepare an audience for what it was about to see. The Thieving Magpie was the twenty-five-year-old Rossini's twenty-first opera, and his fourth for Milan. His previous essays for La Scala—La pietra del paragone (The Touchstone), Aureliano in Palmira, and Il turco in Italia—had failed to please. Given the lively inter-city rivalries in what was still many decades from being a unified Italy, his successes in Venice and Rome and Naples made the Milanese the more suspicious.

When he arrived in Milan at the end of January 1817, not knowing yet what libretto he would be handed by the La Scala dramaturg (those were often the arrangements in those days, especially in Italy), he came fresh from his most clamorous success to date, La cenerentola (Cinderella), introduced just a week or so earlier at the Teatro Valle in Rome. Perhaps to Rossini's surprise, certainly to his pleasure, the Milanese audience loved The Thieving Magpie, every single number of it, from overture to finale. Stendhal reports in his Life of Rossini that the premiere "was one of the most glittering, most single-minded triumphs" he had ever witnessed in the theater, and writes that afterwards "the composer declared that, notwithstanding his delight at the success of the work, he was utterly exhausted by the effort of bowing, literally hundreds of times, to an audience which, at every instant, had been interrupting the performance with its shouting and applause: bravo maestro! evviva Rossini!" Concerning the overture, Stendhal writes (and I quote Richard N.

Coe's vivacious translation) that "it would be almost impossible to describe the enthusiasm and the delirium of the Milanese audience on first hearing this masterpiece. The pit, having clapped and cheered to the echo, having shouted for five whole minutes on end, having in fact created such an uproar and pandemonium that no conceivable stretch of the imagination can visualize it, found itself in the end utterly exhausted, too physically weak to cheer a moment longer; and then it was that I observed each man turn to his neighbor and start talking—a phenomenon which is totally foreign to the suspicious temperament of the average Italian. Meanwhile, in the boxes, the crabbedest, the oldest, the most cantankerous of spectators were gasping and squeaking: o bello! o bello!—the same word over and over again, twenty times on end, and not addressed to anyone in particular (for, of course, to repeat the same word twenty times is rather odd as a normal conversational gambit), but rather, every man having by this time grown completely oblivious of the fact that he had neighbors, expressing the thinker's own thought to himself." The libretto of The Thieving Magpie, by Dr.

Giovanni Gherardini (actually a medical doctor), was based on a recent play, La pie voleuse, by two successful Parisian authors of boulevard theater, Théodore d'Aubigny and Louis-Charles Caigniez. I quote the drastically brief plot summary in The Metropolitan Opera Encyclopedia: "In a village near Paris, the servant girl Ninetta is condemned to death for stealing a silver spoon, but timely discovery of the titular magpie's thievery spares her." Stendhal says that "this disgusting little anecdote" is based on an actual event, noting as well that on a previous occasion a servant had actually been hanged in Palaiseau and that in her memory an annual Magpie Mass was celebrated for years. "La gazza ladra, that's the one with the drum rolls, isn't it?" said a friend when I mentioned that I was about to write this program note. Indeed it is, three of them, for two snare drums, used first antiphonally and then together. They and the march they introduce are a rare touch of verisimilitude in that both Ninetta's father and fiance are soldiers (the introduction is marked Allegro marziale).

Going from the introduction to the main part of the overture, Rossini changes from major to minor and begins the new section with a theme in light-footed pianissimo triplets. The contrasting theme, introduced by the oboe, is charmingly flippant, and in the manner audiences had come to expect of him, he follows this by one of those still irresistible crescendos. This overture is, on its own terms, precisely what Stendhal calls it, a masterpiece. —Michael Steinberg Michael Steinberg, the San Francisco Symphony’s Program Annotator from 1979 to 1999 and a contributing writer to our program book until his death in 2009, was one of the nation’s pre-eminent writers on music. We are privileged to continue publishing his program notes. His books are available at the Symphony Store in Davies Symphony Hall.

More About the Music Recordings: Herbert von Karajan with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (Deutsche Grammophon) | Eduard van Beinum with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (Decca) Reading: Rossini, part of the Master Musicians Series, by Richard Osborne (Oxford University Press) | Rossini, the Man and His Music, by Francis Toye (Dover) San Francisco Symphony La Gazza ladra - Teatro alla Scala (2017) (Production - Milano, italy) | Opera Online - The opera lovers web site New production On the 200th anniversary of the Premiere - Teatro alla Scala 1817 “The success was so enormous, the opera aroused such furore that at every moment the audiences stood up en masse to cover Rossini in acclaim.” Stendhal, a spectator at the Premiere at La Scala in 1817, described how “Rossini grew tired of bowing before the audience tired of applauding.” Two hundred years later, the eminent expert on Rossini Riccardo Chailly brings this celebrated tragicomic opera back to the stage where it was first performed.

A masterpiece of grace and brilliance, it is also adept at describing the excesses of power without beating about the bush. Making his debut at La Scala for the occasion is Gabriele Salvatores: the director, co-founder of the Teatro dell’Elfo and Oscar winner in 1991 for “Mediterraneo” returns to the theatre to relate the story of the servant Ninetta, who is wrongly accused of theft. The cast brings together the cream of the new generation of Rossinian bel canto: with Rosa Feola debuting, we will hear the tenor Edgardo Rocha, basses Alex Esposito and Paolo Bordogna, as well as Teresa Iervolino and the expert canto of Michele Pertusi. StreamOpera Gioachino Rossini 2014 Gioachino Rossini's life Gioachino Rossini was born in 1792 in Pesaro, was an Italian composer noted for his operas, in particular his comic operas. He was the son of Giuseppe Rossini, an impoverished trumpeter who played in miscellaneous bands and orchestras, and Anna Guidarini, a singer of secondary roles.

Rossini spent his entire childhood in the theatre world. Though a lazy student, the young Rossini found it easy to learn to sing and play. At age 14 he entered Bologna’s Philharmonic School and composed his first opera seria, Demetrio e Polibio (1806; staged in 1812) for the Mombelli family, a family of singers. By the age of 15, he had learned to play the violin, the horn, and the harpsichord and had often sung in public, even in the theatre, to earn some money. When his voice broke and he was unable to continue singing, Rossini became an accompanist and then a conductor. He had already realized the importance of the German school of composition, perceiving the new elements by which Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had enriched music. These influences can be found in the early cantata he wrote for the Philharmonic School in 1808. During the following 20 years, he composed more than 40 operas. He died in 1868 in Passy, near Paris.

Rossini's Operas Demetrio e Polibio (1806-1812), La cambiale di matrimonio (1810), L'equivoco stravagante (1811), L'inganno felice (1812), Ciro in Babilonia, ossia La caduta di Baldassare (1812), La scala di seta (1812), La pietra del paragone (1812), L'occasione fa il ladro, ossia Il cambio della valigia (1812), Il signor Bruschino, ossia Il figlio per azzardo (1813), Tancredi (1813), L'Italiana in Algeri (1813), Aureliano in Palmira (1813), Il Turco in Italia (1814), Sigismondo (1814), Elisabetta, Regina d'Inghilterra (1815), Torvaldo e Dorliska (1815), Il barbiere di Siviglia (1816), La gazz

etta (1816), Otello, ossia Il moro di Venezia (1816), La Cenerentola, ossia La bontà in trionfo (1817), La gazza ladra (1817),Armida (1817), Adelaide di Borgogna (1817), Mosè in Egitto (1818), Adina (1818), Ricciardo e Zoraide (1818), Ermione (1819), Eduardo e Cristina (1819), La donna del lago (1819), Bianca e Falliero, ossia Il consiglio dei Tre (1819), Maometto secondo (1820), Matilde di Shabran, ossia Bellezza e cuor di ferro (1821), Zelmira (1822), Semiramide (1823), Ugo, Re d'Italia (1824), Il viaggio a Reims, ossia L'albergo del giglio d'oro (1825), Ivanhoé (1826),

 Il Conte Ory (1828), Guillaume Tell (1829).

Curiosities Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia The first debut of Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia took place at Teatro Argentina of Rome on 20th February 1816 and it is remembered as one of the biggest fiascos in opera. Apart from the many incidents that occurred on stage, what contributed to the failure was definitely the short time the company had for the rehearsal and the short time Rossini took to write the opera, using music which he had already written for previous operas (La pietra del paragone, Aureliano in Palmira, Elisabetta regina d'Inghilterra, Sigismondo). However, the opera recovered from the fiasco and soon became one of the most represented opera buffa in theatres all over the world. Even during the Romantic period, when Rossini's repertoire had disappeared from the stages because it was considered old and out of fashion, this opera continued to be considered modern, as if it could speak to the audience of all times.

Rossini's Torvaldo e Dorliska Torvaldo e Dorliska was written for the Teatro Valle of Rome, where it had its first debut on December 26 in 1815. This opera is placed between two of the author's masterpieces: one semi-serious, Elisabetta regina d'Inghilterra, and the other one, a comic opera, Il barbiere di Siviglia. For the first time, Rossini was approaching the genre semi-serious (reaching his peak two years later with La Gazza ladra). Torvaldo e Dorliska isn't really an easy opera since it has a difficult and insidious vocal writing, but most of all, because of its dramaturgic interruptions, typical of these kind of works. The musical quality is remarkable so is the echo of the characters, both dramatic and brilliant. The figures of the tyrant and the oppressed couple represent the “pièce au sauvetage” stereotypes, presented brilliantly in Beethoven’s Fidelio and offering interpretative contrasts in the relationship between victim and executioner.

Therefore, here are presented the heart rending and touching accents of Dorliska, the proudly noble of Torvaldo and the satanical ones of the Duca d'Ordow. Rossini's La Cenerentola The debut of La cenerentola, happened on the 25th of January 1817 at Teatro Valle of Rome, and it wasn't an immediate success. Rossini didn't probably have much time to rehearse and he had to write the score too quickly. However, this opera remains among the cornerstones of the opera buffa repertoire of the Nineteenth Century. Later, it disappeared from the scenes until it was relaunched during the Seventies, after it was published a new critical edition written by Alberto Zedda. What strikes you about Cenerentola is the musical suspension, between fairytale dream and reality. The protagonist herself, whose highly virtuoso singing is bounded by worry which separates her from the other characters (some of them are strictly part of comical operas), combine the two elements in this beautiful score.

The ensemble pieces in the structure which characterized them, convey surprise and perplexity, giving to the image of this opera buffa the double face of joke and melancholy. Rossini's Ermione Ermione is one of the most fascinating and innovative opera by Gioachino Rossini. It premiered at Teatro San Carlo of Naples in 1819 and the protagonist character has been written for Isabella Colbran, the composer's wife, with an almost amphibian voice, a mix between a soprano and a mezzosoprano. Starting from the painful and dark symphony, not quite typical of Rossini, it anticipates the next musical Romanticism. A bel canto covered with dramatic material to reach a long, difficult final scene for the protagonist, who turns into a tragic heroin. Obviously, Rossini doesn't spare the highly difficult vocal writing to the protagonists and the tenors, other than to Ermione herself. A very interesting panel among Rossini's “serious” production, allowing us to learn more the genius of The Swan of Pesaro.

Rossini's La Gazza Ladra La Gazza ladra is one of Rossini's semi-serious titles, together with Matilde di Shabran and Torvaldo e Dorliska, and is definitely the best from a musical point of view. The opera premiered at Teatro alla Scala in 1817 and, having such a playful plot (remember, for example, the irony of Ninetta who's condemn to death for stealing a spoon) makes the opera a mix between a «comédie larmoyante» and a «pièce à sauvetage». In spite of the plot, it has some of the most dramatic musical sheets ever written by the author (especially those during Ninetta's judgement scene, when the choir sings «Tremate o popoli» and then «Ah qual colpo») and also one of the most popular symphony. La Gazza ladra is also one of the longest musical sheet written by Rossini, almost the same as Semiramide and Guillaume Tell.

The opera was successful for a couple of years and then disappeared from the scenes and it was represented again only in the last couple of decades, put on stage by prestigious productions, which contributed to add charm such an interesting piece of art. Rossini's Bianca e Falliero The opera Bianca e Falliero belongs to Rossini’s serious repertoire and it was composed in 1819, same year of its debut at Teatro alla Scala of Milan on the evening of the 26th of December. As sometimes occurred in his operas, such as Tancredi, this work has a double finale: both a tragic and a happy one. For the public of Milan, which was considered refined and demanding, Rossini wanted to compose a classical opera, so he applied the art of vocal ornament. The opera was praised and represented thirty-nine times. More recently, during the Bel Canto Reinassance, the opera was presented at Festival Rossini of Pesaro in 1986, with two amazing protagonists: Marilyn Horne and Katia Ricciarelli..

Rossini's L’equivoco Stravagante Rossini was only nineteen years old when L'equivoco stravagante (The curious misunderstanding) debuted at Teatro del Corso of Bologna, on the 26th of October 1811. This was his third opera and it received a conflictual welcoming, mostly because of the subject which was considered too libertine for the time. In fact, the show was stopped after the third repeat performance. The misunderstanding which is at the core of the plot is objectively indecent : the clever Frontino sets up a trick to prevent the rich but foolish Buralicchio from marrying Ernestina, the daughter of Gamberotto, who's in turn in love with Ermanno, a humble boy. To help the girl and Ermanno get together, Frontino makes Buralicchio believe that Ernestina is actually a castrato singer.

Share Review/Concert - A Revised Critical Edition Of Rossini's 'Gazza Ladra' - NYTimes.com Review/Concert; A Revised Critical Edition Of Rossini's 'Gazza Ladra' By ALLAN KOZINN Published: January 29, 1990 In his chatty 1824 biography of Rossini, Stendhal included a firsthand account of the premiere of ''La Gazza Ladra'' at La Scala in 1817. The Milanese public was predisposed against the work, he wrote; but it was such a triumph that ''scarcely a moment passed without the entire audience rising to its feet as one man to shower Rossini with applause.'' The audience at Town Hall on Saturday evening was more decorous, but it responded enthusiastically to a concert version of ''La Gazza Ladra'' offered by the Pala Opera Association; it is apparently the work's first New York performance since 1954 and the American premiere of a new critical edition.

The 20th of Rossini's 38 operas, ''La Gazza Ladra'' was extremely popular through the 19th century, but by 1900 it had virtually disappeared from the repertory. The composer Riccardo Zandonai revived it in 1941, in a version that is now disparaged for its cuts and interpolations. In 1966, the English National Opera unveiled a more authentic reconstruction. But Rossini scholarship has come a long way since 1966, and in recent years the bel canto specialist Philip Gossett has been overseeing a new critical edition of the composer's canon. The version of ''La Gazza Ladra'' offered on Saturday is part of that series. It was edited by Alberto Zedda, with vocal ornamentation by Mr. Gossett. In ''La Gazza Ladra'' (''The Thieving Magpie''), Giannetto Vingradito, a soldier, returns to his village in the hope of marrying Ninetta, his parents' servant. Fernando, Ninetta's father, has also returned from the army as a deserter under a death sentence.

To aid his escape, he asks Ninetta to sell a silver spoon. She does, and when a magpie steals a similar spoon from the Vingradito table the circumstantial evidence points to her. Ninetta refuses to defend herself and is sentenced to death. In the original story supposedly based on a true incident, the servant was hanged. But Rossini and his librettist, Giovanni Gherardini, offered a happier ending: the avian larceny is discovered - and Fernando is coincidentally pardoned - in time for a spectacular choral finale. The finale is only one of many musical joys in the score. Each of the principals has music of melodic distinction, and Ninetta in particular is given some extraordinary music, ranging from a florid first-act love song, ''Di piacer mi balza il cor,'' to a gentle, heart-rending prayer in the finale, ''Deh tu reggi in tal memento.'' Equally striking are several beautifully woven ensemble scenes. In reviving bel canto operas, having a musically reliable edition is only part of the battle. Finding sufficiently supple voices is the more difficult task.

The Pala Opera Association, an arm of the Massachusetts-based Provincetown Association of the Living Arts, did a creditable job on that count, and Town Hall's intimacy seemed well suited to the task at hand. Kati Guerra was a lovely Ninetta. She handled Rossini's florid writing and Mr. Gossett's embellishments with assurance and agility, and her voice blossomed nicely as the performance progressed. Abram Morales was not fully secure in the higher part of Gianetto's music, but except at the top he brought an attractive timbre to the tenor role. Jan Opalach, the bass-baritone, conveyed the gravity of Fernando's music wonderfully, and although he sounded slightly dry in the first act he rendered his second-act aria, ''Accusata di furto,'' with a searing emotional power. George Hogan, after a stilted beginning, warmed to the subtleties in the comic bass role, Il Podesta. And Charles Huddleston and Melissa Thorburn made solid contributions as Fabrizio and Lucia, Gianetto's parents.

Timothy Lindberg conducted the performance ably, and apart from a few ragged moments the young musicians of the Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra gave him a robust, well-balanced performance. The recitative accompaniments were played tastefully by John Keene on an 1800 Clementi piano. ‘The Thieving Magpie’: 3 reasons to see this Rossini rarity at The Glimmerglass Festival ‘The Thieving Magpie’: 3 reasons to see this Rossini rarity at The Glimmerglass Festival Rate the news ‘The Thieving Magpie’: 3 reasons to see this Rossini rarity at The Glimmerglass Festival Making its Glimmerglass debut, ‘La gazza ladra’ (The Thieving Magpie) is unjustly neglected Gioachino Rossini at his best. Opera Guild of Rochester Tours - operaguildofrochester.org Advertisements Gioachino Rossini’s 21st # Opera , La gazza ladra (The Thieving Magpie), premiered 199 years ago, in 1817.

His first, La cambiale di matrimonio (The Marriage Promissory Note), premiered just six and a half years earlier, in 1810. Hm, 21 operas in just six and a half years... That’s one new opera roughly every 3 months, 3 weeks,10 hours, 17 minutes and 8 seconds — pretty cool for a 25-year-old. The Glimmerglass Festival premieres this unjustly neglected opera July 16. Why bother seeing an almost 200-year-old opera? Reasons certainly abound. Here are just three: Its compelling story based on historical events It’s incredible that this actually happened to real people. Even more extraordinary: Rossini set the new to music. In a Paris suburb at an imprecise time after an unnamed war, a young girl is tried and sentenced to death for ...(drumroll please)...stealing a silver spoon. It seems spoon filching was grand larceny in ancient France, that is, if the filcher was a servant. The penalty: capital punishment. No spoilers here, but the idea bears grave thought.

Rossini’s richly varied, high-calibre music The deservedly famous overture begins with ominous snare drum-rolls such as those one would hear at an execution, then bursts into triumphant sunshine, followed by a stormy section that points forward to his last (40th) opera, 12 years later. Then comes his trademark slowly mounting crescendo for orchestral tutti, after which — since it’s so much fun — they do it all over again. Oft-performed as a standalone at symphonic concerts, you’ll get the chance to see why the rest of the opera should be performed with equal frequency—you know, attached to the overture. Rossini ingeniously musicalizes each dramatic situation: rousing choruses; festive preparations for a soldier’s homecoming; romantic interludes for the featured young couple, which sound fittingly canoodle-y. Oddly, the interrogation scene has a somewhat zesty underpinning — perhaps a hint that things just may turn out okay despite the dire predicament? The chilling, mournful march leads our feelings to the firing squad, where he hear those ominous snare drum-rolls within their dramatic context.

Talented singers led by Italian Maestro Joseph Colaneri American soprano Rachele Gilmore, as the protagonist, Ninetta Villabella, emotes practically no happiness. Any joyous moments are extremely brief and revert to sadness or a sense of foreboding. Sure, she has a young woman’s giddiness arising from budding romance ... but in the very midst of fear for her life and even her father’s life. A standout, she intones a heartfelt prayer that’s bound to melt your little heart. American bass-baritone Dale Travis plays her father, Fernando Villabella, an irresponsible military man who commendably proves willing to place his life on the line to save his daughter. South African bass-baritone Musa Ngqungwana (debut) plays sadistic, sleazy old Mayor Gottardo, whose repelled advances propel Ninetta into lots of trouble. Italian-American tenor Michele Angelini portrays young soldier Giannetto Vingradito, son of a wealthy farm-owner, who isn’t above falling in love with the family’s servant girl, Ninetta.

American actress Meg Gillentine is the opera’s choreographer, who also plays the title role, that is, the talking bird with a proclivity for pilfering. Are any other birds on her résumé, whether for stage or screen? How does one ornithological role compare to another? She must be a consummate actress if she can perform the role more convincingly than an actual magpie. Makes one curious enough to attend, eh? Forth! You probably thought a fourth reason was coming, didn’t you? Just three were promised, and three you got. But this subheading is intended to spur you to action. Go forth and get tickets to Rossini’s La gazza ladra. Only eight performances July 16–August 25 at The Glimmerglass Festival , 7300 State Highway 80, Cooperstown, New York 13326.

# MusicFestivals # Everything Music and Theatre Advertisements ROSSINI The Thieving Magpie Arthaus 102203 [RJF]: Classical DVD Reviews - June 2007 MusicWeb-International Gioachino ROSSINI (1792-1868) La gazza ladra (The Thieving Magpie) - melodramma in two acts (1817) Fabrizio, a rich farmer - Carlos Feller (bass); Lucia, his wife - Nucci Condï¿½ (alto); Gianetto, Fabrizioï¿½s son, a soldier in love with Ninetta - David Kuebler (ten); Ninetta, a servant in Fabrizioï¿½s house - Ileana Cotrubas (sop); Fernando, Ninettaï¿½s father, a soldier - Brent Ellis (bar); Il Podesta, the Mayor who lusts after Ninetta - Alberto Rinaldi (bass); Pippo, a young peasant employed by Fabrizzio and infatuated by Ninetta - Elena Zilio (mezzo); Isacco, a pedlar - Erlingur Vigfusson (ten); Antonio

, a gaoler - Eberhard Katz (ten) Chorus of the Cologne Opera.

Gï¿½rzenich Orchestra/Bruno Bartoletti rec. 1987 Production directed by Michael Hempe. Set and costume designed by Mauro Pagano Directed for television by Josï¿½ Montes Baquer Picture format 4:3. Recorded in PCM stereo. Subtitle languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian (original language). Notes, synopsis and cast profiles in English, German, French ARTHAUS MUSIK 102203 [182:00] Tancredi and Lï¿½Italiana in Algeri, premiered in Venice, launched Rossini on an unstoppable career that saw him become the most prestigious opera composer of his time. The formidable impresario Domenico Barbaja saw Rossini as pre-eminent among his contemporaries. He summoned Rossini to Naples and offered him the position of music director of the cityï¿½s two Royal Theatres, the San Carlo and Fondo. Barbarjaï¿½s proposals appealed to Rossini for several reasons. Not only was his annual fee generous and guaranteed, but also the San Carlo had a professional orchestra, unlike the theatres of Venice and Rome.

The composer saw this as a considerable advantage as he aspired to push the boundaries of his opera composition in more adventurous directions. Under the terms of the contract, Rossini was to provide two operas each year for Naples whilst being permitted to compose occasional works for other cities. The composer tended to test the boundaries of this contract and in the first two years composed no fewer than five operas for other venues, including four for Rome. Three weeks after the premiere of La Cenerentola at Teatro Valle, Rome, on 25 January 1817, Rossini went to fill another new commission for La Scala, Milan who also boasted a professional orchestra. Here he was given the libretto of his 21st opera La gazza ladra (The Thieving Magpie). It was premiered to great enthusiasm on 31 May 1817 and quickly spread across Europe reaching England in 1821 and America six years later. With its opening drum-rolls the overture made appropriate demands on the orchestra of La Scala and nowadays features as a concert piece in its own right. La gazza ladra is significantly longer than any of Rossiniï¿½s previous operas.

Whilst it is termed a melodrama it really belongs, like Torvaldo e Dorliska, (see review ) to the genre of semi-serious opera. These works are so-called because the basic pattern of the plot involves the principal character, without being guilty of any wrong, falling into mortal danger before being rescued at the last moment. Available recordings of La gazza ladra have, for some time, been limited to an audio-only version of a live performance at the Pesaro Festival in 1989 conducted by Gianluigi Gelmetti (Sony 45850) and an extended highlight version in English from Chandos largely derived from a production first staged by Opera North. The plot of La gazza ladra is well known and simple in outline. The libretto is full of minor, even diversionary, details that serve to provide situations and set-pieces for the main soloists. Away from the San Carlo at Naples, with its roster of the dramatic coloratura singers Isobel Colbran, Giovanni David and Andrea Nozzari to cater for, Rossini was able to extend his musical creativity on the basis of a more mainstream operatic cast as here.

Add the direct production style of Michael Hempe, aided by the natural stage designs and period costumes of Mauro Pagano and there is the basis for a really good show. The main stage setting of act 1 is the courtyard of Fabrizioï¿½s home where Ninetta is employed. With its backdrop of hills it is wholly natural. The gaol of act 2, to which Ninetta has been consigned to await trial, the court where she is tried, the village square where she passes on the way to execution and the stolen silver found in the magpieï¿½s nest in the nearby church tower, are all realistically and faithfully represented. Most importantly, the theft of Ninettaï¿½s silver cross (Ch.52), which she had given to Pippo as she awaited her fate in gaol, is realistically portrayed, as are the birdï¿½s vocal interjections. The burden of the singing in La gazza ladra is carried by the role of Ninetta sung by Ileana Cotrubas.

By the time of this performance she had moved considerably from her earlier fach of the lighter lyric soprano roles to take on the likes of Verdiï¿½s Elisabetta in Don Carlo. She always had an appealing stage presence and except for the odd close-up the watcher would not guess she was in her 47th year so well does she portray the young Ninetta, singing off and reacting to her colleagues. Vocally her voice is no longer the young light lyric flexible instrument of her Pamina at Salzburg or Violetta for Kleiber on the admired DG recording. She has moments of heavy tone and difficulty in sustaining the legato line, but they are relatively few and do not detract from an overall admirable assumption. As her father Fernando, Brent Ellis is another whose voice has risen to heavier roles. I heard him as a lyric Germont pï¿½re and a dramatic Scarpia. With a dark-hued baritone he sings strongly and fully conveys vocally and via his acting the agony of Ninettaï¿½s father.

He is particularly good as Fernando discovers Ninetta has been accused of theft (Chs.44-45) where he makes some effort at decoration and in the court scene when Fernando appears and berates the assembly (Ch.51). The other male voices are more experienced Rossini singers and make varying efforts in respect of decoration. Alberto Rinaldiï¿½s mayor sings and acts the evil scheming Il Podesta as though he would make a fine Pizarro in Fidelio, with strong biting tone (Chs. 21-23). Neither his acting, the story itself, nor the production avoids Il Podestaï¿½s carnality towards Ninetta. It is a good job for modesty that the gaoler interrupts him after his demanding just one kiss, when after removing his coat he attempts to have his way with her (Ch.37-38). He has more Rossini style in his singing than Ellis, but he too does tend to over-sing and force his tone to give a little unsteadiness and vocal spread. Nonetheless his is an excellently acted portrayal.

So too is that of Carlos Feller as Ninettaï¿½s benevolent, somewhat bumbling but humane employer Fabrizio. Born in Buenos Aires, Feller made his career in Cologne and a reputation in buffo roles. Aided by Hempeï¿½s direction his portrayal of the concerned and then bemused Fabrizio cannot be faulted and he can stand comparison with more famous native Italian Rossini buffos. As Gianetto, Ninettaï¿½s intended on his return from soldiering, David Kuebler is another singer well used to the Rossini idiom. Like Rinaldi he appears in Hempeï¿½s productions of La Cambiale Di Matrimonio, La Scala Di Sieta and Il Signor Bruschino at the Schwetzingen Festival in 1989 and 1990. These performances of Rossiniï¿½s early farsi have appeared on DVD on the Euroarts label. David Kuebler is physically tall and handsome. His tallness does cause some necessity for stoop and bending of the knees when clasping the relatively small Ileana Cotrubas to him.

He sings with light-toned vocal elegance and portrays the joys and agonies of the role in his acting and facial expression. The role is a little short-changed in terms of solos (Ch.13) and he makes the best of his duet with Ninetta (Ch.34) when both sing poignantly. Lucia, Fabrizzioï¿½s wife, and the travesti role of Pippo, the adolescent infatuated with Ninetta are the other two female principals. As Lucia, Nucci Condï¿½s low mezzo and matronly appearance are ideal. She starts off as a bit of a baddy being somewhat hard on Ninetta, but then has pangs of conscience as the poor girl is condemned and passes to execution. When all ends well she welcomes Ninetta as husband for her son. The role is not a big sing but she must, and does look, act and characterise the part in her singing throughout. The appearance and acting of Pippo is also good casting. Elena Zilio plays the agile young lad to perfection with her lightish mezzo being, like her acting and movements, realistic and expressive.

The Isacco of Erlingur Vigfusson and sympathetic gaoler of Eberhard Katz are both well acted and sung. Conductor Bruno Bartoletti moves the drama along whilst having respect for the needs of the singers, the evolving drama and Rossiniï¿½s keenly crafted music. The single disc is in simple stereo and 4:3 format with the action divided into 58 chapters. The booklet has a full chapter listing with participants shown for each. There is also a synopsis and, particularly welcome, artist profiles with the latter two in German and French as well as English. There are interruptions in the performance for applause but these are not excessive or extensive except at the conclusion when the only curtain-calls are shown with the credits (Ch.59).

Question: Whose opera La gazza ladra premiered in 1817?
Answer: GIOACHINO ROSSINI